You can run from math, but you can’t hide. It’s all around you. Shopping, cooking, dancing, sports? Math is lurking among each of them.

But there’s no need to be afraid, according to Helene Sherman, Founders Professor of Education at the University of Missouri–St. Louis. Doing so only creates stress, Sherman said, and the proper learning tools can help avoid mathematical struggles.

Sherman, author of “Teaching Learners Who Struggle with Mathematics: Responding With Systematic Intervention and Remediation,” talked with Christine Buck June 16 on KPLR (Channel 11) about the importance of math and how everyone uses it daily.

“We tried to write a book for anyone who’s working with students, so mothers, fathers, families, teachers,” she told KPLR. “For them to look at what it is a student is struggling with so that they don’t say they are not a math person … in this book there are the patterns that most students make and there are step-by-step (solutions) on what to do when you’re struggling with it.”

The book, co-authored by Lloyd I. Richardson and George J. Yard, was published by Pearson Education, Inc. Richardson is a Curators’ Teaching Professor in Education at UMSL. Visit youareamathperson.com to learn more about Sherman and her work.